BEVERLY BARTON - Egan Cassidy's Kid

The last thing Bent remembered was the car speeding away down the street.

“So how does mama bear feel about her cub going to his first prom?” Janice Deweese stacked the tattered books into a neat pile, being careful not to crease any of the loose pages. “And with an older woman!”

“Grace Felton is only two years older than Bent,” Maggie corrected. “She’s hardly an older woman. Besides, I’ve known Grace’s parents all my life and—”

“She’s quite suitable for Bent.”

“Lord, did I sound that snobbish?” Maggie stood perched on a tall, wooden ladder placed against the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves at the back of the room.

“I did hear a hint of Gil Douglas in that comment.” Janice eyed the books in front of her. “Should I start on these today or wait until tomorrow? Repairing all eight of them will require a great deal of patience.”

Maggie checked her wristwatch. “Since it’s nearly four, why don’t you wait and get started on that job first thing in the morning. Bent should be here soon and I’ll need you to close up shop for me today.”

“Have you two settled your trip-to-Florida argument?” Janice slid off the stool behind the checkout counter and stretched to her full five-foot height.

“As far as I’m concerned it’s settled.” One by one, Maggie placed the recent shipment of books, which were collections of first-person Civil War accounts, into their appropriate slots on the shelves. “Bent is too young to go off to Florida with a bunch of other teenage boys. He’ll have time enough to indulge his adventurous streak after he turns eighteen.”

“Bent’s a great kid, you know. I don’t think you need to worry too much about him. You’ve done a wonderful job of raising him without a father,” Janice said.

“But Bent has a father who—”

“Who wasn’t much of a parent, even before you two got a divorce. Let’s face it, Maggie, you’ve brought up your son with practically no help from Gil Douglas.”

“Gil tried.” Maggie wished she could have loved Gil the way a woman should love her husband. Perhaps if she had, Gil might have been a better father to Bent. In the beginning, he had made a valiant effort, had even adopted Bent. But a man like Gil Douglas just wasn’t cut out to raise another man’s son.

“Face the truth, Maggie. Gil couldn’t get past the fact that you were engaged to him when you had your little fling with Egan Cassidy.”

Maggie tensed. “I’ve asked you not to mention his name.”

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to dredge up bad memories.”

That was the problem, Maggie thought. The memories weren’t bad. They were bittersweet, but not bad. Nothing had prepared her for an affair with a man like Egan. She had been swept away by a passion unlike anything she’d known—before or since.

“It’s all right,” Maggie said. “Just try not to forget again.”

The bell over the front door jingled as a customer entered. Both Janice and Maggie glanced at the entrance. Mrs. Newsom, a regular patron who collected first editions and had a passion for books of every kind, waved and smiled.

“You two just keep on doing whatever you’re doing,” Mrs. Newsom said, her sweet grin deepening the laugh lines around her mouth. “I just came to browse. I haven’t been by in several days and I’m having withdrawal symptoms.” Her girlish laughter belied the fact that she was seventy.

Maggie climbed down the ladder, shoved it to the end of the stacks and emerged from the dark cavern of high bookshelves into the airy lightness at the front of the store, where the shelves were low and spaced farther apart. She checked her watch again. Four o’clock exactly. Bent should arrive any minute now. Her son was always punctual. A trait he had either inherited or learned from her.

Bent regained consciousness slowly, his mind fuzzy, his body decidedly uncomfortable. Where was he? What had happened? He attempted to move, but found himself unable to do more than twitch. Someone had bound his hands and feet. He tried to call out and suddenly realized that he’d also been gagged.

The guy in the school parking lot and someone who’d come up from behind had drugged him and tossed him into a car.

Bent looked all around and saw total darkness. But he felt the steady rotation of tires on blacktop and heard the hum of an engine. He was still in a car, only now he was inside the trunk.

Obviously he’d been kidnapped. But why? Who were these guys and what did they want with him? His mother’s finances were healthy enough for her to be considered wealthy by some standards, but he knew for a fact that her net worth was less than a million. Her bookstore, which specialized in rare and out-of-print books, barely broke even, so she relied on interest and dividends from her investments for her livelihood. So why would anyone kidnap him when there were kids out there whose parents were multimillionaires? It just didn’t make sense.

Bent had heard about young boys and girls being kidnapped and sold on the black market, so he couldn’t help wondering if his abductors planned to ship him overseas. The thought of winding up on an auction block and being sold to the highest bidder soured Bent’s stomach. Or he could end up in some seedy brothel, a plaything for dirty old men. A shiver racked his body. He’d rather die first!

But he had no intention of dying or of being used as a sex slave. He’d find a way to get out of this mess. He wasn’t going to give up without one hell of a fight!

“I can’t understand where Bent is,” Maggie said, checking her watch again. “It’s ten after five. He always calls if he’s running late and he hasn’t called.”

Janice grasped Maggie’s trembling hands into her steady ones and squeezed tightly. “He’s all right. Maybe he forgot. Or he could be goofing off with the guys or—”

Maggie jerked her hands free. “Something’s wrong. He’s been in an accident or… Oh, God, where is he?”

“Do you want me to check the hospital? I can call the ER.”

“If he’d been in an accident, the police would have contacted me by now, wouldn’t they?”

“I think so. Yes, of course they would have.”

Maggie paced the floor, her soft leather shoes quiet against the wood’s shiny patina. “I’m going to call some of his friends, first, before I panic. He usually catches a ride with Chris or Mark or sometimes Jarred.”

“So call their houses and find out if maybe he’s with one of them. And if he just forgot about calling you, don’t give him a hard time.”

“Oh, I won’t give him a hard time,” Maggie said. “I’ll just wring his neck for worrying me to death.”

Setting her rear end on the edge of her desk in the office alcove, separated from the bookstore by a pair of brocade curtains, Maggie lifted the telephone and dialed Chris McWilliams’s number first.

Fifteen minutes and six calls later, Maggie knew what she had to do. Janice stood at her side, a true friend, desperate to help in any way she could. With moisture glazing her eyes, Maggie exchanged a resigned look with Janice, then lifted the receiver and dialed one final number.

Paul Spencer, Parsons City’s chief of police answered. “Spencer here.”

“Yes, this is Maggie Douglas. I’d like to report a missing child.”

“Whose child is missing?” he asked.

“Mine.”

“Bent’s missing?” Paul, who’d gone to high school with Maggie, asked, a note of genuine concern in his voice.

“I’ve contacted all his friends and even talked to Mr. Wellborn, the school principal. Although I dropped him at school this morning—early—for a student council meeting, he never arrived. No one has seen him all day. Oh, God, Paul…help me.”